Fitness & Lifestyle

There are all kinds of hacks for improving sleep: getting more sunlight during the day, dimming the lights at night, wearing blue-blocker glasses, doing regular exercise, having a warm shower before bed, and the list goes on.

Some of them, like getting enough sunlight and doing regular exercise, are an important part of living a healthy lifestyle, and they can certainly help a great deal, but there’s an underlying factor that has a much greater bigger impact on the quality of our sleep: stress.

In fact, the sleep scientist Greg Potter, PhD, considers it the master factor. If you’re relaxed enough, then you can get away with having fairly poor sleep habits. But if you’re struggling with stress, no matter how many sleep hacks you adopt, none of it will be enough to cure your sleep problems.

Now, some of us carry high levels of chronic stress in the classic sense. If you’re struggling with that, you probably already know that it can be a problem, and I think this article might help. But even if you aren’t stressed in the classic sense, stress might still be interfering with your sleep.

For example, I wouldn’t describe myself as overly stressed or anxious. However, when I lie down to go to sleep at night, I still have a flurry of thoughts running through my head. I start thinking about articles I’m writing, how my son’s doctor’s appointment will go, or that business article I read the other day. None of these thoughts are necessarily bad, and in some cases, it’s an exciting or even inspiring kind of stress. Still, all of these thoughts running through my head prevent me from drifting off into a relaxed sleep.

That’s where reading comes in. And of all the genres, fantasy has some unique advantages.